a radical squad of black artists and artists of color

Do Not Resist? An FTP Mixtape

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We are extremely thrilled to release our first FTP Mixtape to close out our exhibition Do Not Resist? 100 Years of Chicago Police Violence. You can stream on Soundcloud or download all the tracks here: tinyurl.com/donotresistmixtape

When we came up with the idea of making a mixtape for the exhibit a couple months ago, we were initially thinking of something like a playlist of songs by some of our talented friends. Quite frankly, it almost didn’t happen at all in the midst of the many other things we had to do by the time Do Not Resist? opened. It was actually the tremendous reaction to the exhibit itself that inspired us to resurrect the project. By this time, it had become more than a mere playlist; it had become part teach-in, part love and part struggle–captured in song, chants, protests, and interviews.

Many of the tracks were generously contributed by some of Chicago’s most talented artists, many who have been and continue to be directly impacted personally by police violence. We also included clips from marches and other forms of protest that are exemplary of the fierce resistance to police violence in Chicago; these are part of movement history now, and we shouldn’t forget. Woven throughout the mixtape are clips from two interviews with Mariame Kaba on policing and abolition. Who better to provide the teach-in portion of the mixtape than Mariame, who was such an inspiration for this exhibit, not to mention a teacher and co-struggler for so many of us who are abolitionists?

We wanted this mixtape to be as unapologetically abolitionist as the exhibit that inspired it. Dr. Ruthie Wilson Gilmore says that “abolition is about presence,” not just the absence of prisons and police. Consider this mixtape our contribution to creating an abolitionist presence in our world.

~ Do Not Resist? Curators (Monica + Deb + Ruby + Sarah-Ji + Serena)

P.S. Much thanks to everyone who made this mixtape possible, especially to all the artists for contributing, Mariame Kaba for dropping so much wisdom & knowledge, Salome Chasnoff for the CD copier, Sarah Lu for audio advice, Danbee Kim for the beautiful artwork, Tom Callahan for the beats, Page May for finding us the song that kept playing in Sarah-Ji’s head as she was compiling the mix (Power to My People fyi, the very last track, NOT TO BE MISSED), Zach for letting Sarah-Ji play nothing but versions of the mix for the past week, Cadence for being Cadence, all our co-strugglers in For The People Artists Collective and everyone working towards abolition in their every day. #IBelieveThatWeWillWin #AbolitionNOW